Diving in Panji \ Mirimar Goa

Oilerman

I spent two days diving in Panji on Oct/31 - Nov/1st and just thought I would post my experiance since I had a hard time finging information before arriving here.

I went through the Baraccuda dive center located in the Goa Marriot. The center was fantastic. They are well equiped, well trained, don't cut corners and have alot of fun. I learned some things about some of the other dive shops nearby in Goa with regards to safety and especially marine conservation that were less then flatering. I even witnessed (as did everyone else on the boat) another dive operation breaking local conservation laws. Enforcment here, as in many places in India, is very lax and inconsistant, which was evident as fishing boats trolled over nearby sites known to have spanish and portugese gallions buried in the sand, in full view of Indian cost gaurd ships btw. I was told National geographic did a special on the wrecks here a while ago. At any rate from what I learned during my stay here I would only recommend diving with the Baracuda shop. If you call ahead they can book you into Pete's Hidaway which is literally a two minute walk from the Marriot and is very nice. (Rs 750 with A/C)

Now the diving itself can be very good. I got lucky though. The day I went vis was around 40', but they said usually its half that and some days they measure vis in inches rather then feet. If your planing a special trip just for diving phone ahead and ask what the vis is. With 40' vis there was alot to see. There is a wreck that went down in 1952 that is very interesting as it has evolved into a well established reef. Big groupers, angel fish, snappers, jelly fish, needle fish, baracudas and lots of fish I couldn't name. Other sites I visited were underwater rock formations which had wide arrays of sea life.

The diving here in relitivly shallow as it would be a struggle to get deeper then 20M, so its good for beggining and advanced divers.

Hope someone finds this info helpfull.

P.S. Sorry about the spelling, don't have a spell check available.

Oilerman

Here's the shops web site.

http://www.barracudadiving.com/